The Deal with Making a Deal

When I went to buy my first new car in my early twenties, I was armed with a detailed analysis and breakdown of what I felt would be a fair price. I even included a dealer profit in my price.

I was so naive.

I still shudder at the memory of that salesman smirking over my added profit. Who knows how much I overpaid for that car but I”m sure it was a lot. Maybe because of that, I’ve worried over every subsequent deal in every aspect of my life. I never wanted to feel that foolish again.

As an author, I never had to worry about negotiating anything. I had an agent who handled the contracts for my books. I just signed on the dotted line. Perfect.

Until MONSTER DOWN DEEP.

In 2024, when Editor Sarah said she wanted to take my book ‘in house’ I had no agent. So when Pushkin Press put together the contract for the book at the end of April, it arrived in my inbox.

All 14 pages of it.

If you’re interested, this is some of what’s in a publishing contract:

Rights: Who owns the rights and is it in one country or the world? In a certain language or every language? And in what formats? Print? Digital? Audio? Stage? Screen? What if Disneyland wants to create a ride with the fish in my story? Who owns the rights? What if plush versions of my fish flood the market? Who owns the rights and where does the money go?

Responsibilities: What materials do I turn in to them and when are the deadlines? How will the editing process work? How long do they have to publish the book? What happens if either one of us don’t meet our responsibilities?

Money: Will I get paid money in advance? How much and when? (The average advance for a children’s book is between $1,000-20,000. Not much!) What percentage of the purchase price will I get? (Usually about 12-15% of a hardcover and 7-9% of a paperback. Not much!) If the books are sold at a discount (from Target, let’s say or through a book club) then the number is usually even less. There are also figures for e-books (usually 25%) and for audiobooks (around 20%). It’s fairly standard which is nice if you’re going to negotiate, but for everyone who thought traditional publishing was where the big bucks are, then yes, but only for the top .01 percent of authors. The contract also covers sub-rights—what if they sell the book to another country? Who gets what percentage of the money and when?

It’s a lot! It was recommended that I hire a contracts lawyer and if you’re a writer in my position, I recommended it, too. I would have hired one except for a few things: I had nine contracts with the markups from my agent so I had good examples for comparison. I had an author friend who handles her own contracts and she offered to help. (Thank you, Shonna!) I was working with a well-known and well-respected publisher. Finally, I wasn’t the same kid who bought that first new car. Some lessons are costly, but I learned a few things:

•No one needs to like you in a contract negotiation. It’s not personal.

•It’s okay not to know what you don’t know. Ask questions.

•If you don’t understand the answers, ask again. It’s not your fault if you don’t understand—it means they haven’t explained it well enough. Yet.

•Figure out what really matters to you. Let the rest go.

I worked with the contract people at the publisher and as I remember, we did three rounds. I crossed some things out and rewrote language using other contracts and I changed some timelines. I asked questions. They countered on some items, changed some items, and explained why they couldn’t change the others. In the end, I didn’t get everything I wanted, but I was able to sign on the dotted line without shuddering in shame.

The whole process happened without my editor getting involved. It’s actually a great way of doing things because if things get heated it doesn’t affect the working relationship between author and editor.

After I signed, I got a congrats email from Editor Sarah. It really felt like the moment of celebration. After all the writing and all the editing and all the wrangling, there was going to be a book in the world that I created. I opened up the good wine!

At this point, you think I’d be done.

I’m not.

It’s time to do ANOTHER revision of the book. This time, I have to triple-check all the little things and make sure the facts I provided are accurate. It may be fiction, but it better be true. According to the contract, I have 60 days to do it.

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